


and close beside him swim

by octaviamatilda



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Consensual Violence, Drinking & Talking, Grief, Kissing, Light Angst, M/M, Oral Sex, Swearing, Unequal affection, Vulnerability
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-24
Updated: 2016-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-17 03:02:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8127853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octaviamatilda/pseuds/octaviamatilda
Summary: Post Billy's resurrection, post Charlestown; in the immediate aftermath of the loss of Miranda.  This was borne out of surprise (read, dismay) at the apparent strength of Billy's hatred for Flint; that is, in an episode set later than this fic (during Flint's combat with Teach, in particular). I wish they could find more common ground. The excerpt of poetry at the top of this fic comes from 'Hero and Leander' by the fabulous Christopher Marlowe. It may be one of the gayest yet ostensibly straight things I've ever read and (perhaps not inexplicably) it connected beautifully in my mind with Flint and Billy. Enjoy.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Post Billy's resurrection, post Charlestown; in the immediate aftermath of the loss of Miranda. 
> 
> This was borne out of surprise (read, dismay) at the apparent strength of Billy's hatred for Flint; that is, in an episode set later than this fic (during Flint's combat with Teach, in particular). I wish they could find more common ground. 
> 
> The excerpt of poetry at the top of this fic comes from 'Hero and Leander' by the fabulous Christopher Marlowe. It may be one of the gayest yet ostensibly straight things I've ever read and (perhaps not inexplicably) it connected beautifully in my mind with Flint and Billy. Enjoy.

O that these tardy arms of mine were wings!”  
And as he spake, upon the waves he springs.  
Neptune was angry that he gave no ear,  
And in his heart revenging malice bare.  
He flung at him his mace, but as it went  
He called it in, for love made him repent.  
The mace returning back, his own hand hit,  
As meaning to be venged for darting it.  
When this fresh bleeding wound Leander viewed,  
His colour went and came, as if he rued  
The grief which Neptune felt.

Christopher Marlowe, Hero and Leander

 

After his watch, the eighth bell being just struck, Billy made quiet steps to Flint’s cabin. The captain had demanded his presence there, having caught his notice that afternoon when the boatswain had descended from the rigging with a gentle thud. Flint held him with the hard gaze of long use, for a fraction longer than was comfortable, then spoke gently. 

‘I wish to speak with you. When your duties are done for the night.’

Billy merely nodded. No room for request in the command and none at all for denial in the response. 

_Aye Captain. Of course, Captain. As you say, Captain._

On the dark side of the cabin door, Billy raised his hand to knock. He hesitated for a breath, not quite able to see his cracked knuckles and tanned skin in the dim light, then rapped lightly on the wood. 

‘Come in.’

Billy stooped to enter, as he naturally did, his bulk and height not resolving itself with the dimensions of the door. The room held the amber glow of a few candles that barely kept the darkness in the corners. Billy brought himself back to full stature. He didn’t contort himself for Flint anymore. Nevertheless, he hovered with uncertainty now that an unlooked for intimacy wrapped itself around them both. 

Flint was perched in the window seat, half turned to the glass with his right leg tucked beneath him, jacket gone, feet bare, and a cup of something in his hand. Billy made to snap the door shut, and Flint exhaled softly at the sound.

‘Sit down, Billy.’

He sounded weary; absurdly, Billy felt more on his guard for that. Was Flint expecting him to take the cushioned seat next to him? The idea of such proximity appalled and thrilled Billy. He took the sensible option, as was his wont and not Flint’s, and placed himself gingerly in the chair on the opposite side of the desk. 

The captain was gazing into his cup like a Brahmin searching for shapes in the oil. The longer the silent moment stretched, the greater the impulse Billy felt to grind his teeth. Flint wore vulnerability poorly, as though it were an uncomfortable old boat cloak. It made a misshapen thing of him. 

The boatswain placed his elbows on his knees, suddenly too fatigued to maintain rigidity. He scrubbed his hands over his face once.

‘What the fuck is it, captain?’

The look Flint passed across the desk gave Billy pause. His bright eyes appeared wet with candle flame but something sharp moved behind them. A knot clenched in Billy’s gut.  
Flint spoke as he rose, padding over to his own chair and taking it with seeming discomfort.

‘Would you like a drink?’

Billy’s dark blonde brows knitted together briefly. 

‘Alright, thanks.’

The captain poured him an identical cup of something dark, which to his chagrin turned out to be fine sweet wine. The flavour cleaved to his palate; it cloyed on his tongue and he couldn’t find a fondness for it but two mouthfuls politely swallowed had Billy wondering why he was pretending. 

He watched Flint watch him. The captain took a sip and spoke.

‘You said that it didn’t matter. That you didn’t know and you didn’t really care.’

Flint had left the quarterdeck with purpose earlier that day and Billy, as he caught the movement of that black coat, had half known he would be waiting on the main deck for the use of Billy’s ear. And he had half known why.

Flint would never have let it lie, despite the clarity Billy had been at pains to display when he had returned to the ship after the _Scarborough_. He had no desire to talk about it. It would avail him nothing. Flint was about to ride roughshod over him regardless, and it was only a mild source of surprise that it had taken this long. 

‘When I went into the sea,’ Billy began, ‘I didn’t have the time to think about how or why I came to be there. When I came out of it, and realised that I might yet live despite Hume’s efforts, I didn’t think of you at all. Yours had been the last face I saw but the crew, my brothers, were the first lucid concern I was capable of having.’

Flint had the grace, or the guile, to look a little abashed. Billy knew that the captain didn’t really hold the lives of the crew so cheaply, even if not for the same reasons as his own. But the boatswain’s ire was rising. He took another gulp of wine, not bothering to hide his grimace, and continued. 

‘It didn’t seem needful to worry about your welfare. A bullet, a sword, a bit of bad weather. Christ, you’ll outlive us all.’

Flint had remained silent and watchful as Billy poured himself out; the implication of his last words brought a twitch to the captain’s eye and he clenched his cup with white knuckles.

For a black moment, as Billy replaced the pewter cup on the edge of the desk, a faint tremor in his grasp, he wondered if he’d gone too far. He could probably beat the captain in a fair fight but he wasn’t certain enough.

Flint fixed him with steady jade scrutiny.

‘I didn’t drop you. Not on purpose. It didn’t cross my mind to let you go. You were, are, too valuable to this ship. And to me.’

Billy huffed out a breath, ducking his head to run a damp palm through his short hair. Evidently, his disbelief showed on his features. Flint gave the smallest smile, that corner quirk of his mouth, and set his drink to the side too. 

‘That’s the truth.’  
Billy stood, began to pace behind the chair in which he’d been sitting. His fingers clenched and unclenched at his sides. Flint watched the muscles ripple in the tanned forearms and sat up a little straighter; the movement was caught in the corner of Billy’s eye. _Good_. 

Flint ran his hand over his copper beard in a gesture of subtle agitation. The boatswain didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone control, supress and deploy chosen emotion with a skill that matched Flint’s. Billy bit his tongue through a rapid swell of irritation; it seemed an inadequacy, Billy had always felt, that if he was experiencing affliction then one need only glance at him to see it. 

Bracing his hands on the carved chair back, he asked, ‘why are you telling me this? My gratitude isn’t useful to you.’

The captain ceded a wan smile and sat back.

‘William Manderly, you are one of the most perceptive young men I have ever met. And, uniquely, you are the only thing I have ever lost that has come back to me. It isn’t for you to be grateful. You are here. You were willing to rejoin a crew that was still under my captaincy. It is one more regret amongst a thousand in my life that I was unable to hang on to you. In the wet and the wind and the cold, I simply didn’t have the strength.’

The click of Billy’s throat as he swallowed seemed like the report of a musket in the hush of the cabin.

‘And it was a misjudgement to corner you in the way that I did.’

Billy visibly slumped. 

‘Jesus, give me some more of that horrible wine.’

Flint couldn’t stop the laugh that barked out of him, refilling Billy’s cup as he retook his seat. 

‘Do you believe me?’ Flint replaced the dark green bottle after sloshing a last measure into his own cup. His freckled hand remained around the thick neck of the vessel, his thumb tripping over the wet rim of the glass mouth.

‘I don’t know if I’ve ever believed a word that’s come out of your damn mouth.’

_Good, honest Billy Bones._

‘But I do believe in you. Either way is just as likely to end with a sword in my throat but at least I won’t be surprised when I find that it’s you holding it.’

Flint looked taken aback. Calloused fingers relinquished the bottle. He fiddled with the ring on his little finger as he breathed out his surprise. 

‘Fuck, Billy, I…’

‘If it served your purpose, you’d be entirely prepared to let me die.’

Billy took a gulp of the over-sweet wine, simply for something to do with his mouth that wasn’t talking. He was sailing dangerously close to insubordination and they both knew it.

‘Letting you die isn’t the same as sticking a blade in your gullet.’ Flint decided to catch the nuance and not the insolence. He knew when to pull rank and when to let men talk like men. Billy was relieved, and a little ashamed of himself, that Flint seemed quietly hurt rather than angry.

‘And I don’t know what you imagine my purpose to be but it isn’t steadily murdering my way through my own crew.’

Billy would not ask what Flint wanted him to. The captain wasn’t leading this dance. 

‘What did Mr Gates imagine was your purpose?’ Billy’s parents had taught to him to push, and push, and keep pushing. It was a hard lesson to unlearn.

Flint rose precipitately and Billy flinched, still sitting. The boatswain felt a desperate itch in his fingers, a compulsive desire to ensure his dagger was housed in its usual place at his hip. 

Flint only wrinkled his brow and turned to where he had begun at the window seat. 

‘I deserve your contempt for that.’ Flint’s voice sounded small and raw. Billy thought that the captain must be trying to find his own reflection in the dark dirty glass of the window panes, and failing. ‘But I won’t apologise for what it has been necessary to do, for everything it’s taken to get where we are. Otherwise, it’s a waste.’

The captain half turned his head, still showing his broad back to Billy. ‘I’d prefer instead to explain myself.’ 

Billy halted in his fidgeting. ‘I’m listening.’

‘Miranda, Mrs Barlow, formerly Lady Hamilton, was my lover.’

 _Know no shame. Know no shame._

‘As was her husband, Lord Thomas Hamilton. Together, we three, along with the aid of Lord Peter Ashe, devised a scheme of universal pardon to be offered to all pirates who called Nassau home. Before the plan could be properly implemented, Thomas’ father, Lord Alfred Hamilton, caught intelligence of our relationship.’

Flint’s voice was growing softer and softer as he spoke.

‘We were helpless as Thomas was taken from us. He died in an asylum sometime later. I had lost my position as a Lieutenant in Her Royal Majesty’s Navy, and barely escaped the noose, and was obliged to flee to Nassau with Miranda for the sake of our safety. She became Mrs Barlow and I…’

Flint paused, turned to Billy, who sat, lips parted as he listened. The boatswain’s earnest expression choked Flint’s next syllable. 

‘Christ…Billy, you don’t even know my name.’

Carefully, Billy rose, stepped lightly around the desk and approached Flint with one large rough palm outstretched.

There was, at the very core of Billy Bones, something generous and honest, something of such equanimity that ran impossibly, incurably deep. Flint ached to be in the presence of that again. He took the hand proffered him, dry and warm, and braced his fingers tightly around the spread of the palm that wrapped his own. 

‘William Lilburne Manderly.’

Billy canted his head a little at the revelation of his middle name. He felt his ears pink. 

‘James Alexander McGraw.’

The boatswain’s blue eyes roved over Flint’s granite cheekbones, the sharp strength of his straight nose and the rust coloured brows that even now struggled in temporary abeyance of a years long habit of scowling. ‘Flint’ suited him far better.

‘James…I like it.’ Billy grinned, feeling faintly stupid. 

_Kind Billy Bones._

It was the first time Billy believed he had ever witnessed a genuine smile from the captain. Compassion brightened him like dusk sunlight on purple waves. It glimmered in his features until Billy had to cast his eyes down, gazing at their clasped hands which he had had cause to forget but was now all he could focus on the longer they remained joined.

‘All of this, ‘Billy’s voice was embarrassingly strained, ‘has been about Thomas. About his, your, plan.’

Flint gave the mercy that was being asked and let go Billy’s hand. Neither of them made to step away.

‘I don’t believe I could identify the moment when all of this stopped being only about Thomas. But that was how it began.’

It was a point of helpless, exquisite relief when Billy pushed forward and took Flint’s lips with his own. The boatswain never did anything thoughtlessly: he considered the path of greatest damage, and always sought to avoid it. Always.

Flint staggered back a step under the weight and bulk of Billy’s large frame and gave a wordless grunt to feel long fingers grasping the back of his neck, keeping him flush to the heaving kiss.

‘You loved him, didn’t you?’ The question was mumbled into the captain’s mouth, even as Billy ran his tongue along the seam of Flint’s slickened lips.

‘Yes, I…’

Billy turned them, wedging the captain against the desk as he pressed on. 

‘If you love the way you hate, he mustn’t have known what hit him.’ Billy spoke into the hot column of Flint’s throat, nuzzling against sunburnt skin there and tasting salt.

Flint’s backside was pressed against the thick of the edge of the wood; his upper body was being forced further and further back, the curve of his spine deepening with every shove and swell and grasping heave that Billy exposed him to. 

Flint went willingly. Billy would push and Flint would take it, because he wanted to. Because he’d missed this. Because Billy was handsome and fair and blue eyed. Because violence only begat violence and submission multiplied gentle possibilities, and he hardly knew what it was to be and feel humane anymore. 

When a broad thigh wedged between his own and nudged against his erection, Flint groaned and struggled with Billy as he kept the energy of his offensive, driving Flint onto the charts and other detritus beneath his back. 

‘Yes?’ Billy breathed against Flint’s chest, the struts of his collarbones peeking above the loose opening to his shirt. Flint couldn’t marshal his voice. Billy’s strong fingers were gripping his hips with quivering restraint and the captain could feel the desire to use more force. It wouldn’t be exercised unasked.

‘James, I listened to you, now you listen to me. You want this, yes?’

Flint didn’t realise he’d closed his eyes. He opened them slowly, catlike. They were heavy with lust and long held pain but he lifted them to Billy, who was gazing at him, mouth puffy and red, breath coming quick between his lips. 

‘Yes,’ Flint spoke in an almost whisper. ‘Ye-’, came an abortive second attempt that stuttered out of him as Billy’s fingers came to the fastening of his trousers. He peeled away the fabric to expose Flint’s cock, springing to lie swollen against his belly, then yanked it down once free of the swell of his pale rump and hips. The captain felt his boots being pulled from him, then his trousers whisked off in short order.

Flint raised his head and watched open mouthed as Billy, climbing back up, ran his tongue once in a broad wet stripe, from base of cock to tip. A beautiful sunny smile made Billy look perversely innocent as Flint’s length twitched an inch from his lips. 

‘Did you fuck him or did he fuck you?’ Billy pressed an open mouthed kiss against Flint’s stomach, just above the patch of copper curls at his groin.

Blue eyes met green. It was said in such a sweet-tempered way, Flint stayed the hand at his side, though his fingers convulsed with a low, hateful desire to strike Billy. Instead, the captain scanned the young man’s countenance and could only see an appeal. 

_You’re not him._

Wordlessly, Flint sat up, shunting Billy away gently so that he could turn onto his front, still half dressed with his naked arse exposed. Bent over, his hipbones pressed into the lip of the desk and his hands up by his head, the captain kept his eyes closed tightly. He screwed up his courage before he spoke. 

‘The shelf by my bed. There’s some shaving oil.’

There was a breath of silence, and then Flint heard Billy moving away to his left. The captain remained physically static, though his head was filled with ghosts. He knew what would placate them, and it came up behind him with strong slick fingers and insistent pressure. Flint had drifted and had paid no mind to Billy until it was too late to do other, until the boatswain had crept up silently to his rear.

Soft lips pressed to Flint’s lower back, soothing and shushing as two calloused digits breached him. He grunted at the intrusion, cheek pressed to the wood, nostrils flaring and teeth gritted together at the feeling of being solidly split. It had been a while. 

Billy was still fully dressed; the captain could feel the chafe of the boatswain’s salt-stiffened trousers against the sensitive skin on the backs of his thighs. Slippery fingers continued to drag in and out of him, tugging gently at his rim, then sliding back in, searching for that spot that made Flint groan in the back of his throat. Clearly, Billy had been with men before, even if they weren’t his unalloyed preference. The captain had never before been aware of it, had not cared to be. The misfortune of the schism between them now seemed more than merely a failure of understanding; it was a disappointment, being at loggerheads when they might have been so much closer.

Billy could feel the rigidity in Flint’s body; even as he opened him up, the captain was straining, wrangling with himself. He could practically hear Flint thinking.

The boatswain leaned further over with his left forearm braced on the desk, his fingers still buried in the pale arse beneath him, and mouthed at the skin of Flint’s shoulder as he spoke.

‘James…talk to me. Speak, please.’

Flint exhaled heavily. 

‘Just…for God’s sake…keep going. I need…don’t be concerned about hurting me.’

Billy’s mouth moved to his ear, hot and damp. His tongue raised gooseflesh as it went.

‘You want it to hurt.’

It wasn’t a question. Billy put more weight, more pressure onto Flint, pliant and trapped beneath him. His fingers pumped once and his teeth worried at the soft pink earlobe. 

‘You want it to hurt. You’re using me. I’m best placed to hurt you and you know it. I know it. You’re using me.’

There was an odd tone to Billy’s voice, something strong and new, that Flint couldn’t place. It wasn’t pain and it wasn’t anger. 

‘No, Billy, that’s not…’ Flint was almost glad he wasn’t obliged to complete his protest.

‘I don’t understand. I don’t think I’ll ever understand you, James. You’re an eternal fucking mystery. But I accept. I accept you.’ Preposterously, Flint felt Billy smile.

Pride. It was pride. Billy Bones had out-manoeuvred Captain fucking Flint. Billy wasn’t more cunning, was no faster on the trigger. But magnanimity could never be duped. 

Flint had not time to think before Billy raised himself from the captain’s back, placing a hard palm between his shoulder blades, and kicked his legs further open with a large booted foot. With steady swiftness, Billy flicked open his trousers with one hand and spat in his hand. Flint swallowed at the filthy sound; he was panting into the desk, forehead pressed to the wood, before Billy had even breached him. He was giving him what he wanted and he’d even spared him the odium of having to ask for it. 

_Generous Billy Bones._

The breath was knocked from him as Billy punched through; the plump head of his cock and then the hard slide of considerable length, without waiting for Flint to adjust. He thrust all the way home, the tops of his thighs flush with the captain’s backside. Billy let out the breath he’d been holding and gave a long low sigh; Flint was gulping for air as his arse thrumming with unspeakable pain. His stomach tightened all the same, the muscles in his lower abdomen and the cradle of his pelvis griping with sharp pleasure. 

‘Billy, move…just move, will you? I can take it.’ 

Before Flint could ask again, a shout was forced from him as Billy snapped his hips, impaling him once, twice, three times, until Flint curved from the surface of the desk and gave a sudden sob. 

Billy bent over him, rucking the captain’s shirt up and wrestling it over his head and shoulders, off his arms and flung away to a shadowed corner. Pale, freckled, scarred, bruised, muscled; he was beautiful. Dense and powerful and trembling over his own desk with Billy’s cock up his arse. 

‘Yes?’ 

Billy bit at his thick shoulder. He would keep asking. 

‘Tell me yes, James.’

‘Yes, Jesus, yes…you don’t need to keep asking for permission. I’ve given it, haven’t I?’

Wet kisses trailed down the back of Flint’s shoulders, teeth scraping along skin at the back of his neck. He was slippery with sweat but Billy seemed unperturbed, dragging his tongue through it. 

‘I’m not going to let you disappear. You’d leave me here by myself while I fucked you into God knows where. And I’m not prepared to allow you that. You say I’m valuable to you. I’m not-’, Billy thrusted, ‘some fucking-’, another thrust, ‘merchantman prize, worth precisely its price and nothing more.’

Flint’s cock was still as rigid as a mast; he groaned with each shove inside him. He couldn’t help but smile. He would remember one thing ever after this: never underestimate Billy Bones. 

‘You believe I’m using you?’ Flint’s breath caught in his throat for a moment as Billy’s hand came to his shoulder, the other at the captain’s waist, ensuring leverage for a vicious roll of his slim hips. ‘I rather think it’s the other way around.’ 

Billy gave a burst of laughter, a good-natured sound that turned Flint’s smile into a wide grin. In turn, his mouth dropped open when the boatswain finally let go, fucking into him savagely and without pause. Flint was forced up onto his toes; the sheer power in Billy’s body was incredible. Hipbones, stomach, chest, cheekbone, all points of contact against the warm wood of the desk were being chafed red by the heft that moved behind him and pierced him in a perfectly unrefined way. 

He had missed this. The salt and the muscle and the throb of a blood-warm male body; even almost fully dressed, Billy felt scorching against him, inside him.

The boatswain moaned unrestrainedly, gasping heavily in the close, sex-scented air of the humid cabin. 

‘Fuck, James…fuck. I’m close, I’m close.’ 

Flint couldn’t respond, could only growl in his chest each time he was split open and Billy’s length nudged against that spot that made his own cock leak and twitch. 

Without warning, Billy grabbed Flint’s right wrist and wrenched his arm behind his back. The counterpoint of resistance gave the extra merciless clout Billy needed. The shock of the violence, cruel and wonderful, caused Flint to shout out loud and come untouched all over the drawers of his desk. He shuddered and tensed, pulsing and spilling, his body roiling as Billy fucked him through it. The captain was breathless, boneless and sore when Billy finally emptied with a whimper, deep in Flint’s arse. 

Soft now, they disconnected with a wince, both of them slick and over-sensitive. Before Flint had managed to right himself properly, pushing up from the desk unsteadily, Billy had gathered his clothes from around the room and placed them neatly where Flint had lately lain. 

The passion had passed and each looked a little sheepish, but Billy swallowed his discomfort and with unwise kindness, pressed a quick unconscious kiss to Flint’s dry lips. 

‘If you need me…’ Billy left the offer incomplete, not entirely certain what it was he was inviting. He only knew he felt tender and helpless at the open expression on his captain’s face. 

Flint could only nod. 

_You are so like him._

**Author's Note:**

> The god, seeing him with pity to be moved,  
> Thereon concluded that he was beloved.
> 
> Christopher Marlowe


End file.
